A colleague posted a story about two seven year old girls talking at a funeral.
One girl told the other her uncle was in the Navy.
The second little girl said that she thought navy was a color.
Is Navy a color?
In the eyes of a seven year old, maybe that is her only exposure to the word. In ages past, people were more aware of the connection between the color and the sailors that wore it. Schools taught children about the sacrifices of brave men and women around the world who had left their homes to protect them in faraway places. Churches had special services and prayers for deployed sailors and soldiers and children were encouraged to ask God for their protection. Moms and Dads would place stars in their windows when a son or daughter was deployed and more often than we would hope those stars would turn to gold.
What color is Navy?
It’s the blue of an ocean that sometimes chills your bones with freezing cold sprays in the winter as you challenge the sea. It’s the brown churning mess of a storm that tosses your ship or boat as it tests the shipbuilder’s skills. It’s the red sky in the evening that marks the sun’s passage beyond the horizon revealing the millions of star points in a darkened sky. It’s the grey sides of a sleek warship plowing its way through a harsh field of waves and it’s a black hull rising to the surface in a rush of bubbling water mixed with air.
But a seven year old can only see these things if the people around them choose to let them see them.
Navy will remain only a color as long as the schools partition the children from the realities of the world in the false hope of protecting them from the realities they will someday face.
Navy will have less meaning in a world with empty churches and even emptier morals and the empty promise of a progressive fantasy that has never succeeded in the history of mankind.
And Navy is an invisible concept in a country where Mom and Dad are so inwardly focused that they fail in their roles of teaching their children about the cost of freedom.
I don’t know what color duty, honor and country are either to some.
But in my mind, they are all the color of Navy.
theleansubmariner 
Well written
Thanks.
Reblogged this on Tales of an Asia Sailor.
Bravo Zulu, Mister Mac. Looking forward to reading your posts in the coming year. Fair winds and following seas.
BZ, Mac, I always enjoy your posts but this struck the 10 ring in our world today. I also look forward to you posts in the new year, have a great one. Getting older can be a trial but beats the alternative!
Loved your post and it is so true. Things need to change for the better for our young people. Color is a word and it shouldn’t be used to divide people. We all bleed red and God made us all in his image.